analyzing poem

In the poem “Seize the day” by Judith Ortiz Coler, there are 9 stanzas and it can simply divided into 3 sections that are morning, day, and night. First three stanzas represent morning since there are words such as “rising”, “light”, “sun”, “dawn”, and “new beginnings” which are all word referring to morning and new beginning. Next 4 stanzas describe the day time, due to the phrase like “Love your work, and enjoy your play.” Last 2 stanzas indicate night time before going to sleep, and author uses words like “sleep”, “dark”, “dreams”, “Good sleep”. By using terms and words which indicate different time zone, author intends to show the time order through morning to night. During reading poem, there were few lines that stood out to me, such as “Think of bathing as a ritual of new beginning.” and “Let the guide you to the place of your origin, an island in the sun, our home now only in our dreams. Say noche, say amor, say sueños.” The line “Think of bathing as a ritual of new beginning.” in third stanza was so interesting since I liked the way metaphor was being used here. Writer compared bathing as a ritual of new beginning, which was a perfect figure to describe new start. The line further made me to think of myself, because I always take a shower to wash my body but to refresh my mind at the same time. Therefore, I used to take shower if I couldn’t focus on something, or to revitalize my mind. Likewise, one of the reasons that I prefer to take shower at morning rather than night was to start my new day with fresh and motivated thoughts. While this line referred readers to start day with freshened mind and body at morning, it further connected to the overall meaning of the poem to live life positively with love and clear mind. The line “Let the guide you to the place of your origin, an island in the sun, our home now only in our dreams. Say noche, say amor, say sueños.” in 9th stanza was also interesting since I loved the way the author used other language in poem. During this stanza, the writer was meant to tell readers to pray before sleep, and think of sacred words that would clear crowded mind. Also think of their ancestors in native language with saying “noche”, “amor”, and “sueños” in their own language. Through this line, I could assume that the writer might be a spanish. Author used spanish words to describe night, love, dreams, and it leaded me to think of words in my own language which are bam, sarang, ggum in korean. This line was truly amazing since it could be read in all different ways depends on which countries do readers come from. For instance, chinese people would replace those words in chinese, and Korean people could change to the korean language. Depends on the people and the countries their from, they can interpret this line in a variety of ways. Through writing this line, the author intended readers to think of their own language and go to sleep with refreshed mind. During this whole poem, author described readers to live life happily with positive and refreshed minds, while thinking of ancestors and enjoying their works.